1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a fluid storage container from which the stored fluid can be removed.
2. Description of Related Art
A printing device that prints using liquid ink is one example of a device that handles a fluid. An example of such a printing device is an inkjet printer that prints by supplying ink from a removable ink cartridge to a recording head, and then discharging ink droplets onto paper by means of the recording head.
One type of ink cartridge that may be used in such printing devices has a discharge ink recovery cartridge that holds an ink absorbing body such as a sponge and recovers discharged ink through an ink recovery path into the discharge ink recovery cartridge. See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A-S59-204569. A printer that enables replacing a waste ink absorber that absorbs waste ink is taught by Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A-H11-70672. When all of the printing ink has been used and the ink cartridge is empty, the ink absorbing member still contains the absorbed ink, and thus, the ink absorbing member is dirty. Accordingly, even if the ink cartridge is refilled with ink, the recovered waste fluid (waste ink) is still in the cartridge and the ink cartridge cannot be used.
Therefore, once an ink cartridge has been used, it must either be thrown away or recycled by disassembling the ink cartridge, replacing the ink absorbing member with a new one, and refilling the cartridge with ink. This makes recycling more expensive than when the cartridge is simply reused, and further, has an undesirable impact on the environment.